Award Of Contracts And Competitive Bidding

“Apart from witch-hunting former ministers, the ruling NDC government has scornfully deprived contractors and other NPP youth several job opportunities, within the past two years.

The NDC government cannot sack people from office and put their party boys there and later claim that they have created jobs, because if you sack 1000 people and replace them with another 1000, the value is still the same” – Alhaji Aliu Mahama, former Vice President of Ghana.

President Fiifi Atta Mills, the executive president of the Republic of Ghana, is a pretender.  To be very blunt, our president is a walking contradiction.  He says one thing today and does another thing tomorrow.

I do not want to say the man is confused, but to be very realistic, the President is not a man of himself.  All the promises he made in the run-up to the 2008 general elections have gone with the wind.  To cover his shame, our President has resorted to knee-jerk reactions.

When he is pushed to a corner, he fights his way to another corner.  He promised the people of the Brong Ahafo Region that he would build a befitting university for them, and so when tongues started wagging that he had reneged on that promise, he flew to Sunyani and cut a sod amidst funfair to tell the people that he had brought a university to them.

He was quick to tell them that the yet-to-be built university would admit fresh students in September this year.  Meanwhile, the people of the region know very well that the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has a campus at Sunyani, and that the previous regime had built an imposing hostel there for the students. It looks as if our President is swimming in a crocodile infested river.  He will surely end up being swallowed by a crocodile.

When president Mills wanted power, he did not hesitate to tell whosoever cared to listen to him that when voted into power, he would make sure all Ghanaians were treated equally, as if there were discriminations in the scheme of things.  He kept on telling us that the country was polarized to the extent that the security of the nation was at risk.

He vehemently spoke against nepotism and cronyism.  He even told us that then President Kufuor loaded his government with members of his family, and promised that when voted into power, he would never repeat those mistakes made by ex-president Kufuor.

Today, President Mills’ brother, Mr. Cadman Mills, is in government, while Betty Mould has also managed to put her brother at TOR.  As for the Ahwoi brothers, they have literally hijacked the government of President Mills. If this is not a typical example of cronyism, I do not know how to describe it.

It was Mills who told us that when he held the reins of power he would make sure all Ghanaians were treated equally in every sphere of their lives, promising never to differentiate between an NDC supporter and any other person from another political party.  We clapped for him, thinking he meant what he said. We were swindled.  We did not know the man had something else under his sleeve.

During his inaugural address, the man told us that he would not do any witch-hunting, but barely two years into his regime, he sent his soldiers to rouse some poor Abudus from their sleep at dawn and whisked them away from Yendi to stand trial at Accra. Not a single Andani was among those who were arrested.

The men are still languishing in jail.  He sent his witch-hunting equipment to the door steps of some functionaries of the past NPP regime, but sadly the law court set them free.

Before we could blink an eye, Mills instructed all his MMDCEs to give priority to only NDC supporters and widely open their doors to them.  That was the beginning of the opposite of “I will be father for all”.

When he gave that fiat, the NDC foot-soldiers took up arms and started vandalizing the offices of the Metro Mass Transport, National Health Insurance Scheme, National Youth Employment Programme and School Feeding Programme, toll booths and even the offices of MMDCEs to get their share of the booty.

Several instructions given to the police to arrest these rowdy foot-soldiers did not yield any meaningful result because the policemen themselves were afraid that if they did not treat the foot-soldiers with kid gloves, they would lose their jobs.  Not even the President could whip them into line as these foot-soldiers held the nation to ransom.

What is worrisome and what has prompted me to write this piece is the way President Mills’ regime is treating some perceived NPP contractors who are Ghanaians and who have been working in this country for the past eight years that the NPP was in control of this country.

These contractors are being treated like lepers and as things stand now, some of them are living in penury and owing banks huge sums of money.

They seem not to be part of the ‘I will be father for all’ mantra.  The situation, as far as the awarding of contracts in this country is concerned, has been turned into ‘they’ and ‘us’.

The ‘us’ contractors are those who belong to the NDC and the ‘they’ people are those who belong to the NPP.  If you visit the Ministry of Roads and Highways in Accra, Mr. Joe Gidisu, the sector minister, has assembled some gate keepers who identify NPP contractors and make sure they are denied contracts even though they are competent and tested.

Bidding for a contract itself is very expensive; so if after going through the bidding process, a contractor who is well qualified to do the job is denied the contract simply because he or she belongs to a political party other than the NDC, the country will not move forward as we all desire.

In fact, the Better Ghana Agenda will forever be a mirage and the dream of making sure the country takes a quantum leap to prosperity will be a dream gone sore.

I know of some contractors who were dyed-in-the-wool members of the NDC and who were given juicy contracts during the NPP regime.  Mr. Adom, based in Techiman, was and still is a staunch supporter of the NDC, but several juicy contracts were awarded to him by the NPP regime. He was even given a national award during the Ghana @50 celebrations.

The contracts were given to him based on his competency and not his political affiliation.  The then NPP regime knew how competent the contractor was and so they did not deny him any bid that he submitted to any outfit.

Mr. Adom has the equipment, expertise and the personnel to execute any job and as such it would have been absurd for the Kufuor administration to treat him badly.

MAWUMS Contracting Company had its first contract during the NPP regime even though the then government knew the CEO was a member of the NDC.  He won several contracts and executed them satisfactorily.

Today, the same company is working on a thirty kilometre tarred road linking Navrongo and Tumu.  Equally, Big Aidoo, who was and still is a card-bearing member of the NDC, was never denied any contract that he bid for. In fact, he was so loaded with contracts that he sometimes dropped some for other contractors to pick.

I can go on and on to mention many contractors who were supporters of the NDC and who were given contracts during the NPP regime, but time and space will not allow me to do that.

What the NDC is doing to perceived NPP members who are contractors should attract the attention of donor agencies because the best is not made from the monies they donate to the country.

Some of these new-found NDC contractors are incompetent, inexperienced and they do not have the required equipment to do the jobs.

The risk is that they may end up doing shoddy jobs to the detriment of the country as a whole.  By denying some contractors the chance to win contracts because they are perceived to belong to a certain political party, the NDC regime is knowingly or unknowingly killing local initiatives.

What is happening in Accra as far as the awarding of contracts is concerned is being replicated in the municipalities, metropolitans and districts. No matter how good you are as a contractor, you should forget about ever winning a contract if you are an NPP supporter.

If you even win one before they know of your political affiliation, you are going to find it difficult to get your money after completing the job if they realize later that you do not belong to them.

It is happening all over the country and Mills is aware but the pretender that is in him will not allow him to speak against the bad practice.

My fear is that if the NPP people come to power, they may also try to pay the NDC people in their own coin.

That will not augur well for our nation, but who will have the moral right to blame them since everybody seems to be silent on the issue.

The time is up for clergymen and well meaning citizens to speak against the practice before it is too late.

If a meek, mild and humble gentleman like the former Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, could come out to speak against an issue of this nature as captured in the above mentioned quotation, the nation must listen.  But will Egya Atta listen?

By Eric Bawah